Actually, I think I'd rather have a normal left alignment than a less-than-perfect hanging punctuation.

Jellby, my sweet:

This feeling is because you work only on what intrigues or interests you. Tex and I are book-slaves. This means that we have to endure and survive, and I, more than most, have to deal directly with poet-clients. What if the hang is supposed to be "perfectly" aligned with the 4th letter? Or the 8th? Or halfway across the line, perfectly aligned with the first lower-case "t" in "buttwax?"

No, no...that way lies madness. Said it earlier, say it again. MAAAADNESS. I mean...if you consider that you wouldn't make yourself crazed for the first lower-case "t" in "buttwax," you can see that the first letter after the opening quotemark is really the same thing. It's all just a matter of degree. So to speak.

This feeling is because you work only on what intrigues or interests you.

Not only because of that. It's also because I'm a perfectionists, and I'd rather have a "perfect" alignment on the left, than a lousy alignment on something that's approximately the size of a quote mark, but not exactly... that would get on my nerves and make me want to adjust it exactly for my preferred font

If I were in your shoes, I'd try to make my clients see it this way. And I'd probably fail, and I'd feel miserable

Not only because of that. It's also because I'm a perfectionists, and I'd rather have a "perfect" alignment on the left, than a lousy alignment on something that's approximately the size of a quote mark, but not exactly... that would get on my nerves and make me want to adjust it exactly for my preferred font

If I were in your shoes, I'd try to make my clients see it this way. And I'd probably fail, and I'd feel miserable

See? See? There is no winning this. That's why I'm saying, instead of making yourself insane, just accept the reality.

Why do you think that the double-quote should be treated any differently than any other character? In other words, why are you wanting to indent the rest of the text? It would look perfectly fine to just let the lines fall where they naturally would.

Why do you think that the double-quote should be treated any differently than any other character? In other words, why are you wanting to indent the rest of the text? It would look perfectly fine to just let the lines fall where they naturally would.

Poetry is Special, and we uncultured fools cannot understand the soul of the art?

Apparently, these poetry types need it. It makes them happy. If we understood why, we'd be reading poetry too.

If I were in your shoes, I'd try to make my clients see it this way. And I'd probably fail, and I'd feel miserable

Actually, that is what I do when they insist on something that makes me grumble.... Lots of reasoning/examples, and then I leave the PROPER code in there, but commented out, so it allows easy updating in the future when they see my way is superior!

I did that a few months ago with an ebook where they insisted on having captions inside the images. While an "ok" solution in the short-run, that will only bring misery and headaches in the future!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hitch

Tex and I are book-slaves. This means that we have to endure and survive, and I, more than most, have to deal directly with poet-clients.

After reading your horror stories, I refuse to do poetry.

I only have to handle a few lines/stanzas every so often.... and I just use a little negative indent. Non-fiction books aren't really chock full of poetry.

Why do you think that the double-quote should be treated any differently than any other character? In other words, why are you wanting to indent the rest of the text? It would look perfectly fine to just let the lines fall where they naturally would.

It's a relatively common typesetting choice for poetry. As for the reasons, I can imagine that:

1. The quote doesn't really belong to the poetry. The quote belongs to the external text, and the whole poetry is inside the quote. This does not apply when the quote belongs to the poetry, as in You are old, Father William. In that case it would be wrong (in my opinion, at least) to "hang" the quotes.